Die Jagd

Carlos Saura's third feature LA CAZA won him a BEST DIRECTOR Silver Berlin Bear that year at the age of 34 (a triumph he would duplicate in 1968 with his next project PEPPERMINT FRAPPE and a final Golden Berlin Bear winning in 1981 for FAST, FAST), which is quite a prescient gesture then, Saura has a comparatively prolific career, even today, this reverend octogenarian is still making his next project. LA CAZA is only my second Saura's entry, after the soul-pulverizing domestic tale RAISE RAVENS (1976, 9/10), this time he was 10 years younger, vigorously sets up a male- predominant set-to among three old chaps in a stark hunting party, an eleventh-hour outburst bookends a weathered generation's disaffection and angst, it is an unpolished bravura to pull the trigger in such a reckless manner, but no one would deny the sleight of hand of cinematography (the late DP Luis Cuadrado) and how Saura patiently paves the way for its drama layers and how he would detonate the time-bomb with eloquent narrative arc.

The film devices a plain story about 3 old friends (a fourth partaker is one friend's young brother-in-law) reunite for a rabbit-hunting expedition in the rural hillside, soon their friendship would be tested under the entanglement of money problem, peer contempt and chronic discontent, starts with a premonition of one of them cannot find a first aid kit for his wounded finger.

Before the open-space shooting, they converse from hunting rabbits to man-hunting, from natural law's priority to piranhas' metaphor for hoi polloi, one who is familiar with that particular period of Spanish history may find access to many allusions here. The actual shooting is all fly- on-the-wall, with a dozen of poor critters being mercilessly put under the camera then waits for a headshot (in the latter half, including a devoted ferret), animal activists will go berserk (not to mention skinning the carcass), the bestiality simmering underneath all the veneer and guises is appalling and guns does facilitate the trigger-happy group.

Voice-over and close-ups are two frequent instruments punctiliously deployed here, the alternatively intensive and exotic score is a obliging company with the film's well-controlled rhythm, the cast is fittingly in working order, and Gutierrez Caba's fresh handsomeness is the vestigial innocence left among adulthood, at least we can still have faith until it gets tainted by the consumption of the malignancy, envy, opportunism and discrimination, I hope Saura agrees with me this time.

Although I own practically half of his filmography, I have only watched three Carlos Saura (whom I saw in the flesh at the 2012 European Film Awards which were held over here in Malta!) movies so far – WEEPING FOR A BANDIT (1964; featuring a cameo from Luis Buñuel), ANTONIETA (1982; co-written by Jean-Claude Carrière) and BUÑUEL AND KING SOLOMON'S TABLE (2001); however, being aware that it was going to be Saura's 82nd birthday presently, I decided it was high time I watched a handful more. The film under review – a slow-burning but powerful anti-Fascist allegory that is all the more remarkable for being made under Spanish dictator Franco's regime! – is the one which made his name, having won him (among others) the Best Director prize at that year's Berlin Film Festival.

The plot deals with three Spanish Civil War veterans who return – after many years and with a younger relative – to their old battleground (a skeleton of one Loyalist is proudly exhibited in a nearby shed) ostensibly to hunt rabbits but, during the course of the hot, tedious day spent in alcoholic consumption and hidden agendas, old wounds and prejudices are fatally rekindled. Acting as their trapper and cook are the crippled poacher (of the landowner in the group) and his adolescent niece: their 'disdainful' status is reflected in the disease that is already decimating the rabbit population and the landowner taking on a much younger mistress after his wife left him. From the small, uniformly fine cast, award-winning Jose' Maria Prado (a familiar face from several Art-house and Euro-Cult movies) – playing the envious, trigger-happy, Sci-Fi nut of the group is a particular stand-out.

Being an animal lover, I was wary that the obligatory hunting and trapping sequences were going to be the whole show here: luckily, it was not the case but when these do come on (gleefully participated in by the landowner's black dog and ironically set to light-headed Spanish pop ditties blasting from a portable radio), they are certainly harrowing to watch: a ferret violently taunts a cowering rabbit in his hole out into the open where the hunters lie in wait for it; the same dutiful ferret is soon deliberately dispatched by the self-made businessman of the group; and, most memorably, a rabbit defiantly stops its flight for a few seconds amid a hail of bullets before being blasted off in a cloud of fur and dust.

This third feature of Carlos Saura is the one that put him on the map internationally. Made twenty-seven years after the end of the Spanish Civil War and with almost ten years of Franco's regime remaining this powerful film reeks of death and oppression.

It concerns four mucho macho men who meet up to enjoy the manly pursuit of rabbit hunting! As they begin stalking their quarry they begin to fan out as if on patrol. Three of these men are no strangers to patrols as they are veterans of the Civil War who fought for Franco and the area in which they have chosen to hunt is where some of the bitterest battles were fought. The fourth is the son of a former Falangist who has his father's German Luger to prove it. We soon realise that this hunt is merely a substitute for the real thing. As one of them casually observes: 'the best hunt is a manhunt'!

Many rabbits are successfully slaughtered but when one of the hunters shoots a ferret belonging to a local peasant the fragile cameraderie begins to unravel with devastating consequences........

This brutal, uncompromising piece is not an easy watch by any means but intensely gripping nonetheless thanks to Saura's taut direction, extensive use of close ups, Luis Cuadrado's stunning cinematography and the uniformly excellent performances. The bleached, barren landscape heightens the films effectiveness.

Apparently this film had a profound influence on a certain Sam Peckinpah. Well, it would, wouldn't it!

This reminds me of that bleak Australian forgotten gem Wake in Fright where dusty sunbaked desolation brings out the worst animal instincts in a group of men, in this case five guys, old friends or acquaintances who haven't seen each other in years, who go out in the Spanish sierra to hunt rabbit. Whereas Wake in Fright at least on some level acquiesces to the idea that we're not perfect beings and revels in anarchy and amorality, Carlos Saura's film feels reactionary. Dialogue and characterization feels calculated to bring out the worst in the characters, they're fully unpleasant from the get go and staying out in the scorching midday heat under a makeshift tent makes them more irritable and frustrated. Their own deadend lives and petty concerns reflect their hunt - from a safe distance, picking off defenceless animals. This is something to pass the time, or worse, an excuse for not passing the time.

I like how Saura films the arid landscape in unflattering shots. This is not the picturesque desert of Lawrence of Arabia. This is an inhospitable patch of dirt where nothing grows and Saura gives us flat shots of dusty hillsides. I also like the frantic hand-held shots, of rabbits running amok through the sparse undergrowth, of the hunters inspecting their rifles and jerking them to aim at the distance, and now someone is nervously wiping sweat off his forehead and musing unpleasant thoughts in voice-over, suspicion or aggression. But everything feels calculated here, and Saura's political commentary does not go amiss. The owner of the hacienda where they go to hunt has discovered the skeletal remains of someone from the "war" (it could be the Spanish civil war, although one of the companions snaps irritably "does it matter which war?") and keeps them hidden in a cave. This is a category, a finger raised in outraged accusation against the worst in us.

My first encounter with this bleak, stunning film was in its homeland, some 50 miles or so from the area. I felt the heat, the anger and how nature really does control us. What it shows keenly , particularly in the exquisite use of black and white is how close we can all be at any time to savagery. The thin veneer of humanity can so easily be removed. It left me sadly aware that we are all capable of such tragedy. Watch it for a feral insight into our dark souls. Superb.